Extreme Lighting Conditions

[Don Greening]

[Luc Majno] “as one person says KNEE adjustment, and another says BLACK GAMMA adjustment, and still another says WHITE adjustment… I have tried them all, but with little luck and a lot of image quality degredation. “

This won’t help because these settings are for fine adjustment of your picture and not specifically to decrease the amount of light coming into the camera.

1) Start increasing your shutter speed until the highlights are under control. The higher the shutter speed the less light will be hitting the imagers.

2) You can also shoot in progressive instead of interlaced. Shooting progressive requires more light to get a properly exposed picture.

3) Set the picture gain at -3 instead of shooting at 0 gain.

4) Buy a screw-on neutral density filter for the front of your lens to be used along with the in camera ND2 setting for really bright snow conditions. Filter size is 77 mm.

– Don

[Rafael Amador]

I guess that in an open day in Canada, in the middle of the snow can have a lot of light.
I would start with the Don Suggestion:Some more ND filters.
[Don Greening] “Buy a screw-on neutral density filter for the front of your lens to be used along with the in camera ND2 setting for really bright snow conditions. Filter size is 77 mm. “
Also I would try with a Polraizer Circular filter. Apart of reducing the light without affecting the colors I think can work great in the snow giving you some spectacular deep blue skies. .

[Don Greening] “3) Set the picture gain at -3 instead of shooting at 0 gain.
“
But with this I do not agree, Don. Increase the gain is just like opening the iris.

Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.

[Craig Seeman]

-3 is DECREASING the gain. I start with -3 Gain as is recommended by many professional shooters.

The Cine Gamma Curves can also compress the highlights to prevent loss of detail in peaks. Try CG4 for example.

[Luc Majno]

Thanks for the quick reply! I didn’t expect any answers so soon! I am a new EX1 owner and did not want to start changing all kinds of settings without asking around first.

I’ll get back to you. Today is (another) BRIGHT AND SUNNY day… 🙂

LM

[Luc Majno]

Thanks for this! I will keep you people posted! This is a great way to get help! A+

LM

[Chris Babbitt]

That’s interesting, Don. I didn’t know that about Progressive mode. How much difference?

[Randy Strome]

I shoot in bright (and extremely variable) conditions all of the time with a huge Dynamic range.

Some suggestions:

-Set up a PP based on Cine1

-If you adjust Black (which is your master black) try -4. The default is +4, so -4 will pull black to a true zero.

-If you are still unable to fit the scene, and do not want to lose either end, adjust Gamma (which should really be called master white or white level) down (I have one PP set up as -5 and use it often).

-Use a Polarizer and if needed additional ND filters up front to control exposure.

[Rafael Amador]

Sorry Craig, I had no idea that was possible.
Anyway there are a lot of interesting information in this thread.
Now is 1 AM but tomorrow I have to read again Randy’s post.

Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.

[Luc Majno]

Thanks again for all the help.

[Kevin Jones]

I agree with Craig. Using a -3 gain makes the image a bit darker and minimizes any video noise.

Here is a good general purpose Picture Profile that I am using for everything:

Picture Profile 01

Matrix ……………on
Select…………….hisat
Level………………0
Phase……………..-5
R-G……………….75
R-B……………….0
G-R……………….-18
G-B……………….-32
B-R……………….-27
B-G……………….13
Color Correction…………..off
White………………………..off
Detail………………………..on
Detail Level…………………0
Detail Freq………………….0
Skintone…………………….off
Knee…………………………on
Auto knee………………….on
Point………………………..90
Slope……………………….0
Knee SAT level……………50
Gamma Level…………..-8
Gamma Select………….CINE1
Black……………………..-6

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